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Getting Past the GOP’s Hucksters

Newt Gingrich may be out of the race, but another Republican southerner is picking up where he left off — trying to give the GOP a clean break from the train wreck of the Bush Administration. That would be Mike Huckabee, the second-most famous native of Hope, Ark., and a long-shot candidate in the GOP primary. Huckabee probably lacks the resources and the name recognition to win, but unlike the Fred McRomniani front-runners, he seems to understand that running on the Bush Legacy (and Bush foreign policy) is no way to win the general election.

Huckabee said the U.S. is ignoring options besides armed conflict with Iran, has trusted the Saudis too much and has allowed Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to go back on his commitment to allow American forces to root out terrorism within his borders.

Just like Musharraf, since 9/11, the Bush administration has played both ends and the middle, assuring the American people that its doing everything it can to protect them, while tiptoeing around our supposed ally, Huckabee said. Its been afraid of upsetting the apple cart, even though the cart contains poisoned apples destined for export to the United States.

Huckabee said the United States has trusted the Saudis and made them rich, only to see the funds used as seed money for terrorism, and that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan will ultimately back whoever can win.

He said the U.S. is headed down one track with Iran and ignoring options besides war a result he said would greatly please Osama bin Laden.

This is pretty tame stuff, but the fact that it seems controversial points to how little the front-runners have sought to separate themselves from the president. Meanwhile, THE front-runner (Rudy Giuliani) has so separated himself from Christian conservatives that they’re making noise about running a third-party alternative — a Nader-like vote-grabber who would all but assure a Hillary Clinton presidency. But if the GOP runs on Bush foreign policy and liberal social policy, it’s destined for a well-deserved landslide anyway. And besides, with Hillary strategically moving herself to the center, would she really be very different from Giuliani?

It took the three successive landslides of Carter-Mondale-Dukakis to force a Democratic reformation. Perhaps the GOP is due for — and will need — a similar humbling to prompt a course change of its own.